Behind those three there’s been ongoing drama for both Jason Anderson and Justin Barcia—sometimes together—as they try to find that gear that they certainly have, somewhere, to catch those three up front. And everyone is still waiting for class newcomers like Christian Craig and Colt Nichols to also move up to where many expected them to be.

With the 250 SX East Region, it means the return of the other Lawrence brother, Hunter, and his red-plated Honda CRF250R. Something to keep in the back of your mind: little brother Jett started the 250SX West Region with two wins, then lost the first Triple Crown race of the series. Well, Hunter started with two wins in the East, and tomorrow will mark his first Triple Crown round of the series.…

And of course we’ll also all be keeping an eye out for Haiden Deegan as the much-ballyhooed (and downright impressive) rookie gets another race under his belt. It will be interesting to see how he fares in the Triple Crown format, though he hasn’t appeared tired at all in the two regular-format races he’s run, finishing fourth each time to hold third in the standings.

Add it all up and tomorrow sounds like it will be a very big day for the ’23 Monster Energy AMA Supercross Championship. Race Day Live starts on Peacock at 2:30 p.m. ET and will continue through the LCQ events; the actual night program will begin at 8 p.m. ET. And don’t forget to check Racer X Online all day long for Breaking News, a full up-to-the-minute race report, timing and scoring, and more, as well as all of our social media channels.

And lastly, check out the Racer X/MX Sports/GNCC Racing crew that visited the West Virginia capital as apart of the West Virginia Motorsports Day today.

Let’s start Racerhead with some words from Jason Thomas on Triple Crown prep….

Pro Perspective (Jason Thomas)

Another Triple Crown event is upon us, and the first go-round for the East Coast 250 crew. Most fans I talk to love these Triple Crown events, and I do too. The nonstop meaningful racing is hard to beat. The night doesn't have any lags or moments where I find myself bored. I don't think they’re manageable for an entire series, nor do I think it would be a good idea if they were. The long main events of a traditional schedule bring an aspect that we would otherwise lose. The fitness required for the last five minutes of a 450 main event can't be understated (not to mention the mental focus). These Triple Crown events do add a nice wrinkle, though. I hope they stay around for the long term.

As for the differences the 250 guys might feel, it will be in their ability to recover between races. These Triple Crown races are full sprints. They need to be able to get their heart rate down and back to a neutral spot before it's time to go again. Ideally, they won't be sweating anymore and their bodies will be ready for another push. I've been in both scenarios, where I was a bit out of shape and didn't feel anywhere near ready for another race, and also been at peak fitness, knowing I was ready to lay it on the line again. I can assure you the latter is more comforting. 

The teams and support staff are critical on nights like this Saturday. Having recovery fluids, someone to rub out muscles, and someone making sure your equipment is clean and ready all make a huge difference. In short, taking every task off the table besides the actual riding. The rider should be able to simply watch the race footage, translate any requested bike changes, and then focus on recovering. Those who can manage the workload best will have a great chance to capitalize in the late laps of races two and three.

Musquin (Matthes)

Most of us think Marvin Musquin is in his last year of racing, and what a career it’s been for Moving Marv. Like Kevin Windham, we may not appreciate his results until he's done. The only real reason he doesn't have a major title is that he's been up against some of the very best, but indoors, outdoors, small bike or big bike, he won lots of races here. And that was after winning two MX2 FIM Motocross World Championships! Anyway, Marv's been out since round two with a wrist injury from a small crash, and I kind of heard behind the scenes that it wasn't very good. This week Red Bull KTM confirmed that he will indeed be sidelined for the foreseeable future, and Marv himself said on IG that he hopes to be back for a few of the last SX races. And I hope that's true, because that would suck to go out (if it is indeed his last year) injured. Get well soon, Marv!

MXGP-TV Trivia Contest (DC)

With the 2023 FIM Motocross World Championship rapidly approaching, Racer X Online is once again partnering with MXGP-TV, and we have a few MXGP Video Passes to give away. You can watch all the action from the 2023 season, as well as Team USA try to defend its title in the ’23 FIM Motocross of Nations from Ernée, France, in October. (Yes, that’s a long way away, but you know you want to watch it!) It’s a $130 value! So we’ve decided to ask an MXGP-related Trivia Question here each week for the next few weeks, making sure the winners are true students of motocross here and abroad. The first person to correctly answer in the Comments below will get the MXGP Season Pass.

We’ll start with a fairly tricky one. Everyone recalls Jeffrey Herlings’ amazing afternoon at the 2017 Ironman National, when the Dutchman decided to line up for a single round of AMA Pro Motocross and promptly went 1-1 in a stunning display of pure motocross speed from the extremely fast foreign visitor.

The question is: Who was the first foreign rider to win with an AMA outdoor national?

Post your answer in the comments below and we will announce the winner on Monday.

Marvin Musquin Wrist Injury/Andrew Short Back Injury (DC)

As Matthes said, the popular Red Bull KTM veteran Marvin Musquin has a worse wrist injury than initially known, and he decided to fly home to France to have a specialist have a look at it. Marvin crashed while preparing for the San Diego round and has been struggling to get the wrist properly healed. With the announcement that he would be out indefinitely came this quote from KTM team manager Ian Harrison:

And the day after attending the Houston SX with his family, former pro and longtime factory rider Andrew Short was badly injured while riding near his home in Texas. Shorty suffered some frightening injuries to his neck and back, but thankfully there was no paralysis or permanent damage. He does, however, have a long road to recovery. Here's a belated get well soon to both Andrew and Marvin, and one for Tim across the waters as well.  

RJ (Matthes)

No, not Rick Johnson, but yes, he's awesome also. No, this is about Rockstar Energy Husqvarna's RJ Hampshire putting out a social post of him riding a 450. He made a joke about the injured Malcolm Stewart loaning him his own bike, and that got me thinking that maybe RJ is going to enter a 450 race for the first time in his career. Remember, he was slated to do some 450 MX races until the team needed him on the smaller bike last summer. From what I gather, RJ's got the option for three 450SX races when the series is in the East—his choice—and he's prepping for that. Last time we talked to RJ on the PulpMX Show, he told us he's working on a deal for 2024 with the team as well. One would logically think that Hampshire would want to race his home-state race of Daytona, right? There's one race for him, and then maybe Atlanta seems like another one he would like? Either way, look for the #24 on a big bike very soon!

Another Champ Goes Down Hard (DC)

Man, the FIM Motocross World Championship have been on a tough run of injuries, going back to 2021. That was arguably the best season I've ever witnessed in MXGP, as Jeffrey Herlings, Romain Febvre, and Tim Gajser took the title chase down to the absolute last moto in Manitoba, Italy. This was in a series that rebounded incredibly well from 2020's general chaos caused throughout the world due to COVID-19 restrictions. And besides those three, Jeremy Seewer, Jorge Prado, and Antonio Cairoli also won rounds that season. But then the hits started coming—and they weren't the good kind. First, Cairoli announced his retirement after winning nine world titles. And then Monster Energy Kawasaki's Febvre badly broke his leg in a crash at the Paris Supercross, knocking him out of the first half of ’22. And then the defending champion at the time, Red Bull KTM's Herlings, broke his foot in a crash during a photo shoot in Spain, knocking him out of the entire '22 campaign. It all left the door wide open for the Slovenian Honda HRC factory rider Gajser to earn his fifth world title since 2015. 

Unfortunately, just as Herlings is getting back up to speed and ready to begin the chase of Gajser anew, as well as his date with destiny—he's just three Grand Prix wins away from Stefan Everts' all-time record of 101—this this time it's Tim who went down hard at an Italian preseason race at Arco Trentino. Early reports said it was some kind of leg injury, then we found out that Gajser actually suffered a broken femur in the crash, which happened when he launched an uphill step-up wrong and the bike went out from under him. Gajser had surgery earlier this week. Hopefully we see another update soon, and hopefully it won't lead to as lengthy a period on the sideline as Jeffrey had last season. 

Here is Tim Gajser's brutal, femur-busting crash in the Italian National at Arco Trentino:

Yamaha LCQ Challenge Raffle (Matthes)

We're back for another year of the Yamaha LCQ challenge, and it’s taking place Friday before the Denver SX. Twenty-two privateers battling it out for the cash, a raffle prize of a 2023 Yamaha YZ450F, a whole bunch of other great prizes, and just $30 a ticket! Sounds like a great time. And I've also arranged for Daniel Blair and Weege to work the podium for me as well at this race. The guys from Vurbmoto are going to help me stream it out, and thanks again to Feld for this opportunity. Get in on the action, buy a ticket.

Dallas History (DC)

The Dallas stop of Monster Energy AMA Supercross is one of the oldest rounds on the schedule, though it does have a funky history. The first Dallas Supercross was actually the opening round of the 1975 AMA/Yamaha Super Series of Stadium Motocross (what we now know as AMA Supercross). The race was held at the old Texas Stadium in Irving, home to the Dallas Cowboys. The first race took place February 28–March 1 and consisted of four “motos” for each class (250 and 500). So in today's parlance, it was a "Quadruple Crown" race. Both classes counted equally, with the top talent pretty much evenly divided. Team Honda's teenage wonder Marty Smith, Can-Am's Gary Jones and Jimmy Ellis, Suzuki's Billy Grossi, Yamaha's Tim Hart, Bultaco's Marty Tripes, and Husqvarna's Kent Howerton were all in the 250 class. The 500 (or Open) class featured Yamaha's Jimmy Weinert, Suzuki's Tony DiStefano, Kawasaki's Gary Semics, Husqvarna's Mike Hartwig and Marcos Steve Stackable.

The winner of the 250 class would be Ellis with his 1-1-1-2 scores, as only Smith (in his first real AMA Supercross) would beat him for a moto win. Texas’ own Stackable won the 500 class with 3-1-13 finishes. According to Cycle News’ coverage, a total of 48,000 fans attended the two nights of racing. Here's a gallery from the first Dallas SX, courtesy of the Dick Miller Archives, including a photo of what may have been the first over-under jump in supercross history. (At least U.S. history—we seem to remember seeing one in those old Victory Day races in Czechoslovakia from the 1950s!)

Here's a full magazine feature we did two years ago about that first Dallas SX in 1975:

Jimmy Ellis, who went on to win the ’75 series, won Dallas again in 1976, but not the series. And then in '77 the Dallas race was hit by a heavy storm in the middle of the first night of racing. Yamaha's Bob Hannah slithered to the win in a 20-lap race of attrition and survival that lasted a full hour. As we reported here last month when the ’23 Oakland race had to be postponed due to rain, the second night of the Dallas race was literally cancelled due to all of the rain, and the Cowboys decided they didn't want supercross back at all. As a result, Dallas fell off the schedule for the next six years. When it returned in 1983, it was actually at the Cotton Bowl—the one and only time it would happen at the home of the Texas State Fair and the Red River Rivalry college football game between the Texas Longhorns and the Oklahoma Sooners. The ’83 race would be won by the late Mike Bell. It was the last win of his excellent career.

In ’84 the race went back to Texas Stadium, the Cowboys having had a change of heart. The race would run there for 25 years, the last taking place in 2008. And who won it the most over all those years? Not Johnson, nor Bradshaw, nor McGrath, nor Carmichael, nor Stewart. Instead it was Chad Reed, who won four times in Texas Stadium: '03, '04, '06, and '08.

In 2010, the Dallas race moved to the brand-new and amazing AT&T Stadium in Arlington, where it's remained ever since. It was run in 2020, before COVID-19 hit, and it was run three times in 2021 as Feld Motor Sports navigated the post-shutdown landscape of stadium availability.

So, who has the most wins in those 15 races so far in AT&T Stadium? Cooper Webb. The Red Bull KTM rider has won four times, meaning he's tied with Chad Reed for the most wins in the Dallas SX—regardless of which stadium the race was held in!

Sheak Memorial 2023 (DC)

As you probably recall, former pro Scott Sheak lost his life in a tragic practice crash in New York back in 2021. Sheak was a widely respected racer, always smiling, always trying to make others smile too. His wife, Amy, has been helping to keep his memory alive by helping other riders on their career paths. She is also helping to host a memorial race this summer to further that cause and honor Scott's memory. You can support it as well with a Scott Sheak Memorial T-shirt. Amy posted this message earlier this week about how the shirt and the concept came to be:

Hey, Watch It!

Tune in and watch the U.S. Air Force Moto Scouting Combine shows on MAVTV:

Tune in and watch the U.S. Air Force Moto Scouting Combine shows on MAVTV:

Combine Ep. 1 - RedBud - Tuesday, February 28th @ 7 p.m. EST/4 p.m. PST

Combine Ep. 2 - Ironman - Tuesday, March 7th @ 7 p.m. EST/4 p.m. PST

Combine Ep. 3 - Fox Raceway - Tuesday, March 7th @ 7:30 p.m. EST/4:30 p.m. PST

2022 U.S. Air Force RedBud Moto Scouting Combine Trailer:

The 2023 AMA Grand National Cross Country Series got up and running last week in South Carolina and Steward Baylor Jr. took a popular win on his new KTM:

Husqvarna’s Casey Cochran, who will be racing the SX Futures tomorrow night, got with Donnie “Roto Moto” Southers for the Arlington SX Track Preview: